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WASHINGTON: The two US mortgage finance giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, said on Thursday they halt home foreclosures until early January as they modify loans to help keep owners in their homes.
The huge firms, which underpin about half of the huge US mortgage market, said in separate statements that they were suspending the foreclosures to support a streamlined loan modification programme announced on November 11.
Both Fannie and Freddie said they instruct their loan service firms to suspend all foreclosure sales and evictions involving occupied single-family homes beginning next Wednesday.
Freddie's suspension also includes properties with two to four units.
The suspensions will be in effect until January 9, said the ailing shareholder-owned mortgage giants, which were seized by the government in early September to avoid their collapse amid the escalating global financial crisis.
The companies have been working with the government and the private sector to try to stem the surge in foreclosures following the collapse of the housing market in 2006 and the related sub-prime mortgage crisis that triggered the financial crisis in August 2007.
"The streamlined modification programme by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Hope Now and 27 mortgage servicers is an important step forward in addressing the systemic issues driving the increase in foreclosures," Fannie Mae president and chief executive Herb Allison said in the statement.
"Until the streamlined modification programme is fully implemented, we felt it was in the best interest of both borrowers and Fannie Mae to take this extra step to ensure that homeowners with the desire and ability to prevent a foreclosure have an opportunity to stay in their homes."
The suspensions will begin the day before the Thanksgiving holiday, which kicks off the year-end holiday season. - AFP/de
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